Manchester United FPL: Who To Own, Captain And Avoid

Man United: buy the attack, not the price tags at the back

Fifth-best attack in our projections, sixteenth-meanest defence. That one line tells you everything about where your money should go at Old Trafford — and, more importantly, where it shouldn't.

The fixtures are honest rather than kind: Spurs at home, Leeds away, then Bournemouth (H), Chelsea (A), Villa (H) and a trip to Anfield to finish. No gimmes, no horrors. An average run for a team that scores plenty and concedes plenty, which means the value is all at one end of the pitch.

Start with the obvious question: Fernandes or Mbeumo? Fernandes tops our list and he's the safest thing at the club — penalties, free kicks, corners, never rested, roughly 4 in 10 managers already own him. But he costs £11.9m, and Mbeumo projects within a point of him over the six at £7.9m. Mbeumo is nailed, he's second in the queue for penalties and on both free kicks and corners, and only about 2 in 10 managers have him. That's £4m back in your pocket for near-identical output — this is not a hard sum. Cunha at the same price is the quiet one: same projection band, barely anyone owns him (fewer than 1 in 10), and he starts every week. If you want a United midfielder nobody else has, he's the play.

Now the trap. Lammens at £4.9m and Maguire at £4.8m look like classic enabler prices, and both are genuine starters — which normally has me reaching for the wallet. But a defence our model ranks 16th in the league doesn't keep clean sheets often enough to pay you, and Chelsea away and Liverpool away are sitting in that run like a warning label. A cheap defender who plays is only value if the team behind him occasionally shuts the door. Their points will come in dribs and drabs, not clean-sheet weeks. Fund your premiums elsewhere.

The honest caveat: "average fixtures" cuts both ways. Fernandes at nearly £12m is priced for his best weeks, and against this list he's more likely to give you steady 5-6s than a run of hauls — fine, but you can get that £4m cheaper.

The call: buy Mbeumo at £7.9m as your route into this attack — Cunha if you want the same thing with nobody watching. Leave the defenders on the shelf, whatever the price says.